Microsoft Quietly Ups Prices of Office for Mac

Computerworld recently did some investigation and found that Microsoft had quietly increased the price of its Office for Mac editions by as much as 17%. Under the new pricing scheme, the single-license Office for Mac Home & Student now costs $140, a 17% increase from the previous price of $120. Office for Mac Home & Business, an edition that adds the Outlook email client to Home & Student's Excel, PowerPoint and Word, runs $220, or 10% higher than the older $200 price. Additionally, it has stopped selling multi-license bundles.

There's no indication or clear proof as to when the price hikes took place, but further investigation of an old search engine cache revealed that the hikes were in place just weeks ago on February 2, so it was likely the increases were implemented on January 29, the day Microsoft launched Office 365 and Office 365 Home Premium.

In addition, Computerworld states the price increases were clearly made by Microsoft to steer consumers towards its more lucrative Office 365 subscription plans.

Fortunately, some online retailers such as Amazon are still sticking to the old pricing scheme and are still offering multi-license bundle packs, while stocks last, of course.